1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a feeding device equipped with a pickup roller for picking up a placed medium to be transported and feeding the medium at a downstream side in a transport direction, a guide pathway for guiding the medium transported by the pickup roller, a transport driving roller that is driven by a power of a driving source and that transports the transported medium at the further downstream side in the transport direction, and a retard roller that is moved to be brought into contact with and separated from the transport driving roller and that is rotated with a predetermined load, and a recording apparatus equipped with the same.
In the invention, the recording apparatus shall include various apparatuses such as an ink jet printer, a wire dot printer, a laser printer, a line printer, a multifunction apparatus, a facsimile, and the like.
2. Related Art
As disclosed in JP-A-2007-203707, a conventional feeding device provided in a recording apparatus is equipped with a pickup roller, a guide pathway, a transport driving roller, and a retard roller. The pickup roller is provided so that a placed medium to be transported can be picked up and transported at a downstream side in a transport direction. The guide pathway is provided so that the medium transported by the pickup roller can be guided. The transport driving roller is driven by a power of a driving source, and is provided so that the transported medium is transported at the further downstream side in the transport direction. The retard roller is moved to be brought into contact with and separated from the transport driving roller and is rotated with a predetermined load.
FIG. 10 is a side view showing an outline in a recording apparatus according to a conventional technique. As shown in FIG. 10, a feeding device 201 provided in a conventional recording apparatus 200 is equipped with a pickup roller 202, a guide pathway 206, a transport driving roller 205, and a retard roller 204 that can be moved to be brought into contact with and separated from the transport driving roller 205. The pickup roller 202 can pickup a placed paper which is an example of a medium to be transported and transport the paper at a downstream side in a transport direction. Then, the transported paper first enters a bank separation unit 203 as a sub separation unit. Then the paper passed through the bank separation unit 203 is further transported at the downstream side in the transport direction by the retard roller 204 and transport driving roller 205 as a main separation unit. At this time, the retard roller 204 is configured to rotate with a predetermined load.
Consequently, when a plurality of papers are transported to the retard roller 204, only the topmost paper 209 with respect to the transport driving roller 205 can path through the retard roller 204. The operation is called as a retard separation. Then, the topmost paper 209 is transported to a pair of transport rollers 207 provided at the further downstream side in the transport direction by the transport driving roller 205. Then, the topmost paper 209 is transported to a recording unit 208 by the pair of the transport rollers 207.
Herein, after the topmost paper 209 is nipped by the pair of transport rollers 207, the retard roller 204 is retracted from the transport driving roller 205. Accordingly, so called back tension cased by the load of the retard roller 204 can be reduced when transporting the paper.
However, a tip side of a paper 210 separated by the retard separation is made contact with a rear end side of a topmost paper 209 being transported. Accordingly, there is a risk that so called dragging feeding occurs in which the paper 210 separated by the retard separation is dragged by the topmost paper 209 by a friction force with the topmost paper 209 to be transported at the downstream side. That is, if there is no return lever for returning the separated paper 210 at the upstream side in the transport direction used in the conventional technique, a countermeasure for preventing the dragging feeding becomes insufficient.